A Magnifying Glass for Virtual Imaging of Subwavelength Resolution by Transformation Optics

Abstract

Traditional magnifying glasses can give magnified virtual images with diffraction-limited resolution, that is, detailed information is lost. Here, a novel magnifying glass by transformation optics, referred to as a "superresolution magnifying glass" (SMG) is designed, which can produce magnified virtual images with a predetermined magnification factor and resolve subwavelength details (i.e., light sources with subwavelength distances can be resolved). Based on theoretical calculations and reductions, a metallic plate structure to produce the reduced SMG in microwave frequencies, which gives good performance verified by both numerical simulations and experimental results, is proposed and realized. The function of SMG is to create a superresolution virtual image, unlike traditional superresolution imaging devices that create real images. The proposed SMG will create a new branch of superresolution imaging technology.

Magnifying Lens with Ultrabroadband Super‐Resolution Real Imaging

“…[24,[47][48][49][50] Different from the conventional magnifying glass with narrow bandwidth and diffraction-limited imaging, the designed real image magnifying lens can obtain more details of the object to achieve broadband super-resolution imaging. Although previously mentioned super-resolution magnifying lens [16,20,[22][23]48] were designed and fabricated, these magnifying lenses suffered from some drawbacks, such as virtual images and work in a narrow bandwidth. Consequently, the broadband magnifying lens with super-resolution real imaging is an important breakthrough in sub-diffraction-limit magnified imaging.…”

“…For far-field superresolution imaging, super-oscillatory lens also aroused much attention and was fabricated experimentally. [18][19][20] With the development of metamaterials, a highly efficient magnifying lens [21][22][23] with matched impedance was designed by transformation optics (TO). [23][24][25][26] TO is a powerful tool to design various novel devices, such as invisibility cloaks, [27][28][29] rotators, [30][31] illusion devices [32][33][34] and novel lens.…”

Planar hyper-lens with uniform pre-designed magnification factor by homogeneous medium

“…The ONM can be realized by layered metallic plates in air, whose length satisfies the Fabry-Pérot resonance condition. 35,36) However, for the hyper-lens in Fig. 1(a), it is hard to realize with layered metallic plates of the same length.…”